Soapbox: Really, Richmond?By Nick Place
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Source: BigPond Sport
Really, Richmond?
Seriously?
The way I've read it over the past week, unless Tiger supporters dig deep and come up with about $6 million, we can forget about success in the near to medium figure, maybe ever.
Collingwood spent a heap more money on assistant coaches and the like last year, which is why Richmond remains uncompetitive.
If supporters don't find the cash, we'll lose star players, won't be able to pick anybody decent up in free agency as it kicks in, and the players will end up wearing hand-me-down boots from a richer club.
Or something like that. Did I miss anything?
This all comes as something of a disappointment to me, as a lifelong Richmond fan. As somebody who did dig deep in the infamous days of Save Our Skins.
As someone who has allowed his fragile, bruised Tiger heart to beat a little more confidently over the past year and a half, as Benny Gale and Damien Hardwick showed signs of leading the club out of the endless wilderness.
But no. Both those men have now confirmed that the club remains screwed. Unless I can personally find $6 million in a hurry.
Well, me and fellow devotees of the yellow and black.
But here's the thing: isn't the AFL currently negotiating a media deal in the vicinity of $1 billion? And isn't the current TV deal worth at least three-quarters of that amount? Before you get to league and club sponsorships, and the steadily increasing river of gold that is club memberships, gate receipts and merchandise profits.
It doesn't strike me that AFL footy is an industry where ready cash is in short supply.
Yet Richmond fans – 31,241 of whom have already dug into their pockets this year to buy a membership (cheapest: $84 for MCC member – which gives access to exactly one home game at Etihad Stadium in round 24; dearest: $900; standard: $287 for 16 games) – are now being asked to come up with millions more to make the club "competitive".
When are AFL clubs going to stop leaning on fans and their fears and emotions?
There is money in the system. It seems unfair that Collingwood, Geelong and other successful clubs have so much more to spend on football departments and standalone reserves teams, when Richmond, North Melbourne and other clubs don't.
If the salary cap allegedly standardises player salaries across all teams, why can't football department spending also be standardised, and subsidised by the AFL?
It's not North's fault it has so few fans. Give the Kangaroos and Tigers the money they need to compete pound for pound with the Magpies, Bombers, Eagles, Crows, et al.
And Richmond, for once appreciate how loyal your fans have been when, by all rights, nobody could begrudge them giving it up as a lost cause a long, long time ago.
Or here's another idea. Instead of hitting us with a fear campaign cash-grab, present us with a business proposal: if we put up the $6 million, you guarantee, in writing, success.
But if you fail (again), you pay us back, with interest. And pay us back all the long lost membership fees that we've forked out over the years to watch failure after failure.
Football's a business, right? Seems fair.
http://www.bigpondsport.com/soapbox-really,-richmond/tabid/91/newsid/67611/default.aspx
